Female activists on mission for peace
By James Hohmann

July 8, 2007 - (The Dallas Morning News) Banning land mines, fighting exploitation of women and halting the trafficking of children are all interconnected and key elements in the ongoing struggle for world peace.

Coming up with action plans to fight against these and a host of other issues is the goal for Nobel Peace Prize laureate Betty Williams and 1,000 women from 43 countries who will be in Dallas this week for the International Women's Peace Conference.

"Wonderful organizations all over the world are doing great things," said Ms. Williams. "But it's never enough. It's just like we're putting a little Band-Aid on a big weeping wound."

Ms. Williams, who won the Nobel Prize in 1976 for creating a group that helped start peace talks in Northern Ireland, said that the world could learn a great deal from the compromises that brought Protestants and Catholics together in her country.
"We didn't sweep the problem under the rug. You have to take every problem – economic, social and cultural – and tackle it head on," she said, speaking by phone Friday from her home in Ireland. "I have a difficulty keeping my nonviolence in mind. When I see children dying, my natural reaction is to want to shoot someone that does that to a child. But I have to turn that around and use that anger for good and not for evil."

She plans to also talk about the growing number of refugees, the continuing imprisonment of fellow Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi by a military junta in Myanmar and the importance of protecting the environment.
For Jody Williams, the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize winner, "peace takes hard work every day."

"Peace is not just the absence of armed conflict," she said. "It is a world in which basic needs of the majority of the planet are met."

"Violence is a choice," she said. "Let's stop pretending it isn't and learn to make different choices."

Jody Williams received her prize for championing a U.N. treaty that restricted the use of land mines. Now she is writing two books, lobbying against cluster bombs and speaking out about what she says is genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan.

Conference organizers say that no one has been invited to speak about the war in Iraq and that the conference – with its theme "Empowering Peacemakers" – is not a protest against the continuing American occupation.

"We're pro-peace. We're not anti-war," said Carol Donovan, a Dallas lawyer who is chairing the conference. "We feel like it's a waste of time to concentrate on anti-war."

But both Betty Williams and Jody Williams say it is certain to be a focal point of discussion, though they weren't invited to talk about their thoughts on Iraq.
"It's going to take 1,000 years to fix," said Betty Williams. "I would be closing my eyes to a huge problem if I overlooked it. One has to face the issues head on. I'm not going to America to be popular. I'm going to be honest and truthful."

Jody Williams says she gets upset when peace activists get stereotyped as weak, or as she puts it, in the image of "the dove and the rainbow." Those pushing for peace are confronting deeply entrenched institutions, she said, and speaking truth to power takes courage.

"Those who work for a world of socio-economic justice are not wimps," she said. "All the work we do for less violence is contributing to human security."

Presentations at the conference, which runs from Tuesday through Sunday, will be devoted to broad issues like power, tolerance and violence. Planners hope networking will produce fresh ideas for how to continue battling racism and sexism.
"The grassroots people know best what is going on in their worlds," said Vivian Castleberry, the founder of event sponsor Peacemakers Inc. and honorary conference chairwoman. "Too often our smug American ideas lead us to think that we have the best answers to everything, and we don't."

It is the third time in 20 years that the nonprofit Peacemakers Inc. has sponsored a conference in Dallas. The first, held in 1988 at Southern Methodist University, brought more than 2,000 women from 57 countries. This time, about one-third of the delegates are expected to hail from the Dallas area, and more than half will be American.

The conference wants participants to think critically about the issues addressed by the speakers. A series of discussions are intended to help women form achievable goals on contentious issues like globalization and the environment.

"We're telling them that it's a cop out if you come up with items that their elected official should do," said Ms. Donovan, the conference organizer. "They need to put together a plan of action where they can actually do something."

From:http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/texassouthwest/stories/070807dntexpeacespeakers.39c01b9.html